Horse stance?

Zoltan97

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I Googled it and I think I have nightmares! How in the world is someone supposed to stand that way and what arts do this?

I'm thinking of joining my school's TKD team when I get back. Please tell me TKD doesn't do this!
 

Gerry Seymour

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It's supposed to be a good leg-strengthening exercise, for one thing. I wouldn't know. I feel about it the way some feel about push-ups.
 

Kung Fu Wang

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I Googled it and I think I have nightmares! How in the world is someone supposed to stand that way and what arts do this?

I'm thinking of joining my school's TKD team when I get back. Please tell me TKD doesn't do this!
The

- hip throw,
- shoulder throw,
- embracing throw,
- bear hug,
- ...

all require to have a low horse stance.

The

- horse stance,
- bow arrow stance,
- golden rooster stance

are the 3 major stances used by the throwing art.

When someone gets a "bear hug" on you from behind with your arms surrounded by his arms, a quick low horse stance dropping with both elbows expanded outside can free you from that "bear hug".

The "bear hug" starts from a low horse stance.

bear_hug.jpg
 
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Zoltan97

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The

- hip throw,
- shoulder throw,
- embracing throw,
- bear hug,
- ...

all require to have a low horse stance.

The

- horse stance,
- bow arrow stance,
- golden rooster stance

are the 3 major stances used by the throwing art.

When someone gets a "bear hug" on you from behind with your arms surrounded by his arms, a quick low horse stance dropping with both elbows expanded outside can free you from that "bear hug".

The "bear hug" starts from a low horse stance.

bear_hug.jpg

Hmm... Maybe the pics I saw were advanced horse stances, I've done hip and shoulder throws and haven't been in those stances. Or maybe I'm so used to getting that low I don't even realize it...?
 
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Zoltan97

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It's supposed to be a good leg-strengthening exercise, for one thing. I wouldn't know. I feel about it the way some feel about push-ups.

So then you know my pain regarding pushups!
 

Kung Fu Wang

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Hmm... Maybe the pics I saw were advanced horse stances, I've done hip and shoulder throws and haven't been in those stances. Or maybe I'm so used to getting that low I don't even realize it...?
The "shoulder throw" training will require you to hold on your opponent's waist belt and your shoulder has to drop below his waist. That's a very low horse stance. If you can move freely in low horse stance, you can move freely in high horse stance. The other way around may not be true.

shoulder_throw.jpg
 

Gerry Seymour

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The "shoulder throw" training will require you to hold on your opponent's waist belt and your shoulder has to drop below his waist. That's a very low horse stance. If you can move freely in low horse stance, you can move freely in high horse stance. The other way around may not be true.

shoulder_throw.jpg
Shoulder below his waist? You're right that's a very low stance. For what reason?
 

Kung Fu Wang

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Shoulder below his waist? You're right that's a very low stance. For what reason?
If you train "shoulder throw" by holding on your opponent's waist belt, your "shoulder throw" will work on short opponent as well. Not many people have gone through this kind of serious training.
 

Gerry Seymour

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If you train "shoulder throw" by holding on your opponent's waist belt, your "shoulder throw" will work on short opponent as well. Not many people have gone through this kind of serious training.
That would be outside the principles we use for the shoulder throw, which is why I asked. The waist belt doesn't allow the proper use of the uke's weight for our throw. We also use a narrower stance, rather than horse stance. And we simply wouldn't use a shoulder throw on someone significantly shorter - again, it violates some of our principles so isn't a good fit for NGA.
 

Kung Fu Wang

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That would be outside the principles we use for the shoulder throw, which is why I asked. The waist belt doesn't allow the proper use of the uke's weight for our throw. We also use a narrower stance, rather than horse stance. And we simply wouldn't use a shoulder throw on someone significantly shorter - again, it violates some of our principles so isn't a good fit for NGA.
It's similar to train your kick while you stand in front of a table. This will force you to bend your knee and let your knee to touch on your chest before you kick out. Again, it's for training. In fighting, that will make your kick too slow.

The horse stance used in the throwing art is a bit less than shoulder width which is narrower than the one used in the striking art.
 

Gerry Seymour

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It's similar to train your kick while you stand in front of a table. This will force you to bend your knee and let your knee to touch on your chest before you kick out. Again, it's for training. In fighting, that will make your kick too slow.

The horse stance used in the throwing art is a bit less than shoulder width which is narrower than the one used in the striking art.
Okay, to me, horse stance (jigotai) is a wide stance. We don't have a formal name for the narrow stance.

It's an interesting approach to the shoulder throw. It would definitely improve the range of the throw. A large range isn't all that key to us - we wouldn't go low into a shoulder throw (we have another throw that fills that gap). I'm trying to remember how the shoulder throw was trained at my Judo dojo, but that was too many years ago. We probably trained it lower there, since you'd expect to have to sneak it in under a competitor. For that, I can see where that deep training would help.
 

JowGaWolf

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It's supposed to be a good leg-strengthening exercise, for one thing.
It is. the stance training strengthens ligaments and tendons in the knees along with muscle.

In Jow Ga there are a few techniques that only work with a low stance. It doesn't have to be super low because it depends on the height of your opponent. If your opponent is the same height as you then the stance has to be considerably low.
You can see in this video how these guys move in and out of the low stance

 

Gerry Seymour

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It is. the stance training strengthens ligaments and tendons in the knees along with muscle.

In Jow Ga there are a few techniques that only work with a low stance. It doesn't have to be super low because it depends on the height of your opponent. If your opponent is the same height as you then the stance has to be considerably low.
You can see in this video how these guys move in and out of the low stance

Well, crap, now you're going to tell me if I go back and do more horse stance practice, my knees might get better. Damn you, JGW.

We only have a few throws that require us to get up under uke like that. We have a few others that let us drop down under uke (so, sacrificing stance to bring body weight to bear), and another group that lets us come over the top of uke (breaking structure from the head, down). Part of our approach is using the technique that fits their body size. So, something like a shoulder throw is normally for someone roughly your size or taller. Something like Pull-down from the Rear is for people roughly your size or shorter. Something like Bear Hug throw is for someone roughly your size. Those are guidelines - it's the "feel" that leads into the right technique, rather than their height. If their weight is high enough, we can treat them as taller. If it's very low (regardless of them being taller than us), the taller-person technique is right out.
 

Flying Crane

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I Googled it and I think I have nightmares! How in the world is someone supposed to stand that way and what arts do this?

I'm thinking of joining my school's TKD team when I get back. Please tell me TKD doesn't do this!
Can you post the link that got you troubled over it? Then we can maybe make some more directed comments.
 

Xue Sheng

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I Googled it and I think I have nightmares! How in the world is someone supposed to stand that way and what arts do this?

I'm thinking of joining my school's TKD team when I get back. Please tell me TKD doesn't do this!

Never dealt with this in TKD, but I did TKD before it was an Olympic sport. You find this type of stance training in a lot of Chinese Martial arts styles. IT works for leg strength and learning about connections within the body, particularly upper and lower.
 

Saheim

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I Googled it and I think I have nightmares! How in the world is someone supposed to stand that way and what arts do this?

I'm thinking of joining my school's TKD team when I get back. Please tell me TKD doesn't do this!

More experienced folks have already explained the purpose of the stance, but no one (that I saw) answered the question in bold, so I'll give ya the bad news - Everything I've ever trained, except Muay Thai. Maybe it is just the places I've trained, but the Horse stance seems to be a staple in MA. It would be like wanting to box, but not wanting to jump rope.
 

Kickboxer101

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If your club does do it then get on with it. Yeah it hurts but any kind of exercise hurts
 
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